Hello friends, it’s great to have you here. I am happy to announce my new website. Look around, find recipes, click on Portland Foodie Finds to see where I like to eat and shop in Portland. Check out the details of my kitchen and the reasoning behind my design. I receive queries all the time asking about sources, etc. It’s all here. Kitchen Tools lets you know what cookware, tools, and small appliances I chose for my kitchen–it’s the stuff I like best. And Wedding Registry Tips guides brides and grooms to selecting quality kitchen basics that will last a lifetime.

As fall approaches and my book tour begins, I’ll keep you up to date with my future classes and appearances. I can barely wait for my latest cookbook, Roots: The Definitive Compendium with more than 225 Recipes, to be published. Look for Roots early this fall.

I’ve been cooking in some professional manner or another for just over thirty years. My first cookbook was published twenty-three years ago. I’m not writing this blog to ruminate on my well-seasoned status in the culinary field, I’m noting these years almost as a reminder to myself that some of my kitchen tools date to the very beginning of my cooking days.

Take for instance my mixer. I still have a spankin’ white KitchenAid mixer that my husband bought me as a birthday present in 1980.  I confess to replacing my ancient avocado green (now that dates me, or at least the era of my bridal registry) with a whirling dervish of a blender called a Vita-Mix, and my old food processor gave up the ghost and was replaced with a new one not many years ago. But it’s the little tools I forget about. Continue reading →

I’d love to tell you I have a magical green thumb, that I’m a plant wizard that who can grow anything, anywhere. My husband would laugh, and rightfully so. It is a miracle when indoor plants survive my forgetful nature. If the information card on a houseplant I’m thinking of buying states, “This plant loves neglect,” then that’s the plant I buy. However, I have managed, with the help of my garden-savvy friend, Christine Bellushi, to plant a kitchen garden and two large container gardens of herbs. I step out my back door and right there on my deck is lettuce. Snip, snip and I have a salad.  Much as I love our farmers’ markets, this is even better.

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